The Pas de Quatre, lithograph coloured by hand by T H Maquire after A E Chalon, 1845.

Group of four ballerinas wearing Romantic ballet dress, three with bold floral wreaths, the leaves tinted green, the fourth with a flower at the back of her head. The central figure stands on point, arms raised above her head, looking down to left; behind her to the right, a ballerina leans forward, her left behind the standing figure, touching hands with the ballerina kneeling to left of the central figure; to the right, a second kneeling ballerina, her hands linked to the other two. Lithograph coloured by hand.

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

The lithograph depicts Carlotta Grisi, Marie Taglioni, Lucile Grahn and Fanny Cerrito in the divertissement Pas de Quatre, choreographed by Jules Perrot, composed by Cesare Pugni, Her Majesty's Theatre, 1845.
With the Pas de Quatre, ballerina worship in London reached a new peak. Four of the greatest Romantic ballerina were brought together in a divertissement designed to show their individual qualities. But in the absence of male dancers, it also revealed the fatal flaw in the Romantic Ballet ideal. The growing prejudice against male dancers, which eventually led to their roles being performed by girls en travestie, partly accounted for the decline of the ballet in London and Paris over the next sixty years.
'Maquire' is a tyopgraphical error; the lithographer is Thomas Maguire.
The print came to the Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest.

S.1-1987